


The Art of (Failed) Holidays

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: The Doctor wants a holiday, but the monsters don't seem to agree with his plans.Classic Who Secret Santa gift for thescarletpaperback.





	The Art of (Failed) Holidays

The sound of the TARDIS landing made the Doctor clap his hands together in delight, beaming. “A perfect landing,” he announced, sounding much too confident in his own navigational abilities. Jamie did not share his optimism. “The most luxurious holiday destination in the galaxy lies just outside those doors.”

“Are ye sure?” Jamie poked a button on the console before the Doctor could manage to swat his hands away. “Last time ye thought it was Planet – Planet -”

“Planet Aard,” the Doctor supplied, looking frustrated.

“Aye, that -”

“Now, Jamie -”

“I’m just _sayin_ ’.” Jamie grinned at him. “Last time ye said we’d landed there, we ended up somewhere completely different, and we had tae fight those swamp beasties to get back to the TARDIS.”

“An isolated incident, I assure you.”

“And the time before that, ye landed us at the wrong holiday place, and they threw us out -”

“Because we weren’t on their guest list. Yes, yes, I remember. But this time, I’ve landed us in the right place.” The scanner flickered into life, and the Doctor glanced up at it briefly. “There you are, you see, Jamie? Aard Intergalactic Resort, right there on the sign. You can’t possibly argue with that.”

Jamie peered up at the scanner. “That’s no’ what it says, Doctor.”

“Of course it is.” The Doctor waved his hand dismissively, occupied with the console again.

“It doesnae say Aard.” Jamie sighed. “We’re in the wrong place. Again.”

“Oh, Jamie, don’t be so pessimistic. I expect we’ve landed inside the complex. It’s probably the name of some attraction.”

“It says _Erd_ Intergalactic Resort.” Jamie could not keep the note of triumph from his voice, despite his disappointment. He was too accustomed to the Doctor’s bad driving to have expected much else. “No’ Aard.”

“Oh.” The Doctor’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Erd is the sister planet of Aard. Anyone could make that mistake, I assure you.”

“Sister planet?” Jamie looked back up at the scanner, suddenly feeling hopeful. “Then they could take us tae Aard! No need tae mess around with the TARDIS again.”

“I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as that.” The Doctor looked more than a little sheepish, and Jamie suppressed a smile. He should have known that there would be some complication. “Aard is on the other side of the galaxy. They’re only sister planets because they’re – ah – biologically rather similar, you see.” Jamie pulled a face at him. “Oh, don’t look like that, Jamie. Erd is the _second_ most luxurious holiday destination in the galaxy. You’ll see.”

* * *

_“Some holiday,” Ben muttered darkly. “Traipsing off into caves in the middle of the night. How’s this any different from what we normally do, Doctor?”_

_“Mm?” The Doctor glanced up from his diary distractedly. “Oh, just keep an eye out for the giant cave worms. They get rather hungry at this time of year.”_

_Polly jumped, pressing herself closer to Jamie. “Sorry,” she said a moment later. “Water dripped down my neck, that’s all.”_

_Ben snorted. “Sure it’s not one of those cave worms, duchess?” He wiggled his fingers, grinning madly, and managed to coax a laugh out of her._

_“Stop it,” she protested. “I’m sure the cave worms are – terribly dangerous – oh, dear.” She broke down into giggles, and Ben joined her after a moment, their laughter echoing off the tunnel walls. “I should’ve known this would be the Doctor’s idea of a holiday.”_

_Jamie slipped his hand out of Polly’s, jogging ahead to join the Doctor. He was looking rather worse for wear, his clothes scruffier than usual after their mad dash into the tunnels, but seemed inexplicably cheerful about the situation. “Oh, hello, Jamie. How are you holding up?”_

_“Aye, I’m alright,” Jamie said, smiling weakly. “Do the tunnels get any smaller than this?” He glanced back towards the rapidly fading light of the entrance. The Doctor looked up worriedly, finally seeming to break out of his preoccupation with his diary. “It’s no’ for me,” he added hastily. “It’s for Polly. She didnae do so well in the tunnels at Atlantis.”_

_He knew that the Doctor had seen through his half-lie, and was grateful when he said nothing. “Only a little smaller after this,” he said, reaching over to turn Jamie’s torch on for him. Jamie winced at the sudden bright light, and again when he saw how narrow the tunnel was becoming. “We’ll need to split up after a while. You and Polly can take the larger tunnels.” He took Jamie’s hand, squeezing it, and Jamie smiled back at him. Somehow, the silent reassurance was comforting._

_“Oi, lovebirds!” Ben called. Jamie sprang away from the Doctor, rubbing his hand as if scalded or dirtied. “Do we even know where we’re going?”_

_“Of course we do,” the Doctor said, sounding as if he was offended by Ben’s doubt. “We’re – ah…” He turned left at a fork in the tunnel seemingly at random, whistling to himself. “I think we’re nearly there.”_

_Jamie dropped behind to rejoin Ben and Polly. “He has no idea, does he?”_

_“Of course not,” Polly said, smiling brightly. “That’s how you know we’re going to be alright. Things usually turn out fine when he’s making it up as he goes along.”_

_Ben groaned. “Speak for yourself. I’d rather he knew what he was doing.” The Doctor opened his diary again, and almost immediately collided with a stalagmite. “See?”_

_“Ah – I’m afraid we’ve encountered a slight problem,” the Doctor announced. Ben closed his eyes in defeat, and Polly laughed at him. “I’m afraid the map I have here is rather behind the times. Or perhaps ahead of them.”_

_“So we’re lost?” Ben asked._

_“Yes, I’m rather afraid we are.” The Doctor turned back towards them. He was looking more pleased than anybody lost in endless tunnels and covered in cobwebs had a right to, Jamie thought. “This is much more exciting than a holiday, don’t you think?”_

* * *

“I cannae believe they just let us in like that.” Jamie flopped down onto the bed, grinning up at the canopy above him. “Hey, if the TARDIS can give us anything we want, can she give us a bed like this?”

“If you ask her nicely enough.” The Doctor pushed the curtains aside to look out the window, studying the attractions sprawled out below them. “So you agree that I’ve landed us somewhere pleasant?”

“I’ve no’ made up my mind yet,” Jamie said warningly. “I’m waiting for the beasties in the pipes tae come crawling out and attack us.”

“Beasties in the pipes?” the Doctor echoed, sounding a little bemused. “Why would they be in the pipes? They could be anywhere. Ah – not that there are any,” he added hastily.

“Because the last lot we ran into could fly,” Jamie said knowledgeably. “If we had the same beasties all the time -”

“Things might be a little less interesting.” The Doctor sat down beside him, running a hand through Jamie’s hair. “I… I do hope our time here is enjoyable. I think we deserve a holiday, after everything.”

“Aye, it’s lucky your people let us have a wee while off.” Jamie caught a flicker of mischief in the Doctor’s eyes. “They did let us have a wee while off, didn’t they?”

“Well, I never quite got a definitive answer out of them. They were quite reluctant about the whole matter.” The Doctor reached into his pocket, pulling out something that looked suspiciously like a component of the TARDIS. “I temporarily altered the TARDIS’ homing circuits, and disabled the links to Gallifrey that they installed. They’ll figure it out eventually, of course, and call us home, but it should take them a while.”

Jamie tried and failed to look reproachful. “Where do they think we are?”

“Solamis, I think.”

The name seemed familiar to Jamie. “Didn’t we land there a few days ago?”

The Doctor nodded. “That’s where I disabled the circuits.” He smiled, clearly trying to appear innocent, and Jamie braced himself for some fresh delinquency. “Oddly enough, it’s courtesy of the prince of Solamis that we’re staying in these rooms.”

Jamie frowned at him. “Ye never did tell me what ye told the person at the desk.”

The mischief in the Doctor’s eyes had spread to his smile. “I told them that we were representatives of the prince, come to consider the resort as a candidate for an official state visit. They were _very_ apologetic when they realised our tickets must have been lost. It wouldn’t do for the Solamisian royal family to give them a bad review, after all.”

Jamie burst into laughter, wrapping his arms around the Doctor’s waist. The Doctor let himself be pulled down, tucking his head beneath Jamie’s chin happily. “At least if we do end up fighting beasties, we can say we’re qualified.”

* * *

_“Jamie?” Victoria pushed the door open tentatively, smiling when she saw that Jamie was still awake. “I was hoping to talk to you. Alone.” She tilted her head towards the communal area, where Jamie knew the Doctor still sat hunched over a computer, the rest of the world forgotten. “He seemed busy, so I thought...”_

_“Are ye alright?” Jamie set his book aside, shifting on the bed so he sat cross-legged to make room for her. “Ye seemed a wee bit quiet today.” Victoria crept across the room, tentative as a wary cat, shrinking away from the shadows as if she expected monsters to leap out from them. “Did ye have a nightmare?”_

_“No, nothing like that. Actually, I couldn’t sleep at all.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “I keep thinking that it’s too peaceful here. That something has to go wrong.” She shrugged. “I suppose it’s silly.”_

_“It’s no’ silly.” Jamie patted her shoulder, trying to seem as reassuring as the Doctor always did when Victoria was nervous. “I know how ye feel.” It was the Doctor’s comfort she needed, he thought. Not his. She needed to hear from him that they were safe._

_“Do you?” Victoria looked up at him, her eyes wide with relief._

_“Aye, ‘course I do,” Jamie said, grinning. “We are with the Doctor, after all.”_

_“Yes, I suppose so.” Victoria glanced towards the door, checking that the Doctor was still down the corridor. “And now he’s so busy with this research. I can’t help but feel that he’s found something wrong with the place.”_

_Jamie shook his head. “’Course he hasn’t. You know the Doctor, he can’t keep still for more than a few days. He’s probably just looking for trouble where there’s none.”_

_“Do you really think so?” Victoria’s face was full of hope._

_For a moment, Jamie debated whether or not to be honest with her. He had been with the Doctor long enough to recognise that he really had found some fresh danger. But he could not bring himself to take Victoria’s renewed sense of security away from her. She did not need to know. Not yet. “Aye, I do.”_

_“It’s just that we never seem to land anywhere peaceful.” Victoria glanced towards his book, and at the clock beside it. As she did so, it let out a single, tinny beep. One o’clock. “Are you alright, Jamie?”_

_“I’m fine. Just waiting up for him. I’d go and sit with him, but I dinnae think he’d appreciate the company just now.” In truth, he had been sleepless with the same worries that plagued Victoria, but once again, he decided against honesty._

_Victoria was staring out of the window, looking a little distracted. “It’s rather like Lyme Regis here, with the town, and the cliffs.I went there once, with – with my father.” Her words seemed to surprise even herself. “It was the last holiday we had, before...” Her voice faltered, and she trailed off, her eyes growing misty with tears._

_Jamie wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Will ye tell me about it?”_

* * *

“Ah – Jamie...” The Doctor was tapping his fingers together nervously. “I’m afraid we need to talk.”

Jamie sighed, recognising the badly-concealed excitement in his voice. “I knew you’d find something,” he muttered. “What’s wrong with the place?”

“It’s the management, you see,” the Doctor said eagerly. Having grown tired of idleness, he had spent the last few days itching for some new adventure, and now he had it. Jamie wondered how much effort it had taken for him to dig up something. “They’re thoroughly corrupt.”

“At least there’s no beasties,” Jamie conceded. “What do ye want tae do about it?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure yet. I was hoping you’d help me think of something.”

_At least there’s no beasties_ , Jamie repeated to himself. Things were simpler when there were no monsters involved. “Can ye not just talk to them?”

“Oh, Jamie, they’d never listen. No, no, we have to destabilise their power base somehow...” The Doctor started to pace up and down the room in thought.

Jamie found himself falling back into their usual routine with surprising ease, despite his misgivings. “Ye know, I dinnae really think holidays are for us.”

“Nonsense, Jamie.” The Doctor waved one hand dismissively. “We’ve had plenty of holidays before.” Jamie snorted. “And besides, we’re still on holiday. This will be a perfectly simple operation.”

“Are ye sure?” _At least there’s no beasties_. “Things aren’t usually as simple as ye say they are.”

“Of course they are.” The Doctor smiled innocently at him. “We’ll be back in the amusement arcade by lunchtime tomorrow, I promise. But you were right about one thing, you know.”

Jamie braced himself. “What?”

“There _are_ beasties in the pipes.” Jamie groaned. “Dissenting customers get – ah – handed over, we might say. Don’t fret, I’m sure we’ll be perfectly fine.”

* * *

_“I should’ve known that this would be the Doctor’s idea of a holiday.” Zoe peered out from behind the rubble that sheltered them, firing off a few shots from her blaster. A moment later, there was a squeal and a crash as another robot fell to the floor. “One more down.”_

_“Well done.” Jamie passed her another power pack, frowning at the meagre supply hanging at his belt. “We cannae take them all down. How long did the Doctor say he’d be?”_

_Zoe checked her watch. “Ten minutes at the most.”_

_Peering over the top of the rubble, Jamie took aim at their next assailant. He paused, considering the various dangers they had faced lately, trying to decide whether the fact that these monsters were made of metal counted as a change from the usual. When he pulled the trigger, his blaster clicked, and no energy pulse fired. Cursing, he realised that his power pack had run out, and ducked back behind the rubble. “Quickly, Zoe!”_

_Zoe barely glanced at the robot before she fired, bringing it down in one shot. She was smiling now, her eyes bright with excitement. There was something reminiscent of the Doctor in her expression. “Simple physics,” she said breathlessly. “We just have to calculate the trajectory of the pulse before we fire, and aim precisely for the energy unit on their chests. There’s plenty of power packs left if we’re careful. And if we bring down enough of them, the wreckage should form a barricade.”_

_“I’ll leave the shooting tae you, then, shall I?” Zoe pulled a power pack away from Jamie’s belt, pressing it into his hands. “Aye, I know, I know, I was just kiddin’.” The footsteps of the next robot were pounding down the corridor, and Jamie raised his blaster to meet it. To his surprise, he managed to hit it on the first try, his shot going just wide of the energy unit and entering the robot’s own weapon instead. It froze, gears and joints groaning, then exploded in a great rush of smoke and fire. The rubble which Jamie and Zoe had been sheltering behind was blown apart, and they ducked, shielding their faces._

_Jamie remained curled on the ground as the dust settled. His ears were ringing, and his mind felt as if it were clogged with the debris of the explosion. When Zoe nudged at him, he flinched away. “Come on,” she said insistently. “We have to get moving before they do. There’s another pile of rubble further down the corridor, we should make it.”_

_Jamie managed to push himself upright, shaking his head to clear it before crawling after Zoe. “Would ye believe that this isnae even the worst holiday I’ve had with the Doctor?”_

_Zoe snorted softly. “Oddly enough, I would.”_

_“We’ve been married six months now, and he hasnae even managed to give us a honeymoon.” Some of the rubble had hit Jamie’s arm in the explosion, and he rubbed the spot ruefully. “Just dinner in the TARDIS. Some wedding present that was.”_

_Zoe grinned, clearly seeing a softness in Jamie’s expression. “But you don’t mind.”_

_“No’ really.” Jamie grinned back at her. “How long now?”_

_“Three minutes. We’ve only been pushed back five metres in seven minutes. They won’t get through.”_

_“I wouldnae be so sure about that.” The silver robots were falling back, replaced by golden ones. “I think they’re sending in the bigger ones now.” Zoe tried to peek at them over the debris, but Jamie pulled her down. A moment later, an energy pulse shot over their heads, grazing Zoe’s hair. “These ones have more guns. And hidden energy units.”_

_“Set your blaster to the highest strength.” Zoe really did look like the Doctor now, Jamie thought. Her eyes were alight with anticipation at this new challenge. “Ready for another round?”_

* * *

“Well, that didn’t go so badly.” The Doctor’s words were belied by his appearance. He was soaked from head to toe, and slime dripped from his shoulders, glowing a soft, ominous blue. Jamie did not dare look down at himself, instead settling for wiping a globule of slime away from his mouth. Distantly, he wondered if it was poisonous. “All in a day’s work, eh?”

“We’ve still got to explain what happened,” Jamie pointed out. “There’s thousands of people here. Some of them must have noticed -” He gestured behind them, towards where the pipe was clogged with a mess he did not dare examine too closely. “That.”

“Ah.” The Doctor glanced back at it, tapping one finger against his lips thoughtfully. “Mm. Axadylian sea snake slime, rather nasty.” A clump fell off his shoulder, and he caught it, tossing it between his hands until it congealed into a thick jelly. “I’ve always wanted a sample of this.” He went to tuck it into his pocket, and Jamie caught his hand. “Oh, very well. I think I have a bottle in here somewhere.” He fished in his pocket dutifully.

“Doctor,” Jamie pressed. “What about the people?”

“Oh, they’ll be alright.” The Doctor managed to fit the slime into a test tube, and carried on down the tunnel. “It’s quite remarkable, you know. One thing many sentient beings have in common Is the most extraordinary ability to forget about things they don’t understand.” The mess behind them wobbled, hissed, and fell away from the pipe walls. Jamie pulled a face as it settled in an ankle-deep layer around them, soaking through his socks. “Though I, ah, I do think we ought to warn the cleaners that we’ve made something of a mess. This slime can set as hard as concrete within a few days, if it’s not treated properly.”

“Och, no.” The slime was working its way into Jamie’s boots, and the Doctor chuckled at his expression of disgust. “And dinnae you tell me that we’ve made worse messes.”

The Doctor assumed an expression of perfect innocence. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Jamie sighed, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion. “I think I need another holiday after all that.”

To his surprise, the Doctor nodded. “I’m sure the new authorities wouldn’t mind extending our planetary visa, after all we’ve done for the resort.” Something told Jamie that he would not be taking the issue to the authorities, but he refrained from saying anything. “In fact, I think we could go one better than that, don’t you?”

“One better than that?” Jamie repeated, staring at the Doctor.

“Mm.” The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Seeing as we’re representatives of the prince of Solamis, any and all assistance we offered in that frightful incident with the sea snakes was a state-sanctioned favour from the prince – and, ah, one that would be rather harmful to the resort if people were to find out about it. The new management might even see fit to grant the prince free access to the resort whenever he wished, in order to make up for it all.” He smiled. “And his representatives, of course.”

“Unlimited holidays, eh?” Jamie grinned back at the Doctor. “Aye, alright. Just so long as they dinnae all turn out like this.”

The Doctor had the good sense to look at least a little apologetic. “No promises, I’m afraid.”


End file.
